Redevelopment Update

Those of you who have followed this blog have noticed no activity over the last several months. That is because the volume of work both in my "day job" and for West Windsor has been overwhelming, particularly with respect to redevelopment. The time committed to redevelopment became virtually full-time as we went through the plan line by line in nearly half a dozen workshops.

As you know, Council referred the plan to the Planning Board in early January over the objections of Heidi Kleinman and myself. We favored completion of our homework and good planning over political expediency. The forces in favor of political expediency caused an incomplete plan to go to the Planning Board. Political expediency now has resulted in a still-incomplete plan coming back to Council.

The Planning Board Chairman, Marvin Gardner, has taken absurdly inconsistent positions with the full support of the Mayor. (At least, we have not heard a peep of concern out of the Mayor about any of this travesty.) He has complained about the 45 day limitation on Planning Board review. He has self-imposed that limitation by refusing to consider asking Council to grant an extension, if necessary. He has closed down the Planning Board review, declaring their work finished after 3 meetings when several organizations had not yet submitted their comments, relying on the published 5 meeting schedule.

Political expediency rather than any serious attempt at good planning is epidemic in West Windsor. One member of council, with the apparent support of two others, is demanding that we introduce the plan as an ordinance by the end of the special meeting of council scheduled for February 23rd.

I will do my best to resist a precipitous introduction of an incomplete redevelopment plan. The current draft provides for a number of housing units "to be negotiated" with InterCap Holdings, Steve Goldin's organization. I will opposed any effort to introduce that plan as currently written because I am confident it means we are committing ourselves to at least 935 housing units in Mr. Goldin's district alone (1 of 10 districts in the redevelopment zone). Given his increasing costs, I am confident that the 935 unit number will go over 1,000 in short order. That is too much housing for one small piece of the redevelopment area on top of the housing that COAH and other considerations will bring to the rest of the redevelopment area.

But I cannot do it alone. Anyone who is concerned about being overwhelmed with housing in the redevelopment area needs to come to the meeting on February 23rd, or better yet, come to public comment during the regularly scheduled meeting of Council on February 17, to provide their input and demand that council remove this serious ambiguity that gives the administration unilateral power to bring a lot of housing into West Windsor. The meeting on February 23 will begin at 6:00 p.m.